The number of Americans who are missing payments and falling into foreclosure has followed the upward trend in unemployment. The jobless rate has remained near double digits all year.

"Ultimately, the housing story, whether it is delinquencies, homes sales or housing starts, is an employment story," Jay Brinkmann, the Mortgage Bankers Association's top economist, said in a statement. "Only when we see a consistent increase in employment will we see an increase in sales and starts, and a sustained improvement in the delinquency numbers."

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc. Economists expect the number of foreclosures to grow well into next year.

This very well be the straw that breaks the Middle Classes’ back. I know good hard working families who are in the middle of these pay or walk from their homes decisions right now. They are in my prayers.
Intercessor

When you destroy the American dream for a whole class of citizens who by and large have followed all the rules and have been responsible in their use of credit, you could be lighting the fuze of a very big bomb of populist anger.

My wife and I know of several families…..friends of ours…..who are facing possible foreclosure for these very reasons…..here in Los Banos. This town desperately needs economic help and investment, and so far, we haven’t gotten it. With the exception of minimum wage jobs from big box stores and restaurants, we have seen no new jobs here, and as a matter of fact, they’re scarce in most of the San Joaquin Valley. We don’t want any more such jobs, but we DO want well-paying high-tech jobs for our people who have to commute to San Jose and other cities in the Bay Area.

This administration made a huge strategic mistake with the stimulus monies.

Those monies went to support large financial institutions, large unions and the employers of those union members. It was money spent to ‘prop up’ organizations that needed to undergo economically necessary but unpleasant changes. This ‘ill-spent’ stimulus money has not brought about those changes in a manner or to a degree that will benefit our country in the long run.

What this administration should have done was to stimulate the economy from the ‘bottom up’ by forgiving 50% of personal and corporate income taxes for tax years 2009 and 2010 and by making ‘quick and easy’ loans to small businesses based upon time proven loan practices.

The wisdom of the tax forgiveness actions and immediate small business loans should be obvious to any administration as actions that would provide an immediate jump start to the economy in an extreme situation such as this.

But maybe its an ideological thing with them or maybe, maybe, ........, well enough said.

I would much prefer to see those high-paying jobs come to our town, and I know for sure that I’m not alone. The lack of such jobs in our town is just one of the reasons why people stand to lose their homes to foreclosure.

fail to see why this is a problem, To me more foreclosure are a good thing in the long run. this is the correction we need. Too many people are homes they cannot afford or paid inflated prices for them. Nobody going to replace the income lost. I see foreclosures as the market correcting a huge mistake made before 2008; hosing as investment rather than shelter and deficit spending on all levels

#5, every local needs those jobs. I told a story a week or so ago about Lanett, AL. A total backwater area transformed by the placement of the new Kia North American manufacturing complex. America has to rediscover the wealth creation potential of manufacturing at all levels. But that can’t happen until we become value-oriented competitive with the world. As long as local governments, environmental purists, State Governments, and the Feds throw tax and regulatory roadblocks in the way, we will not enjoy the economic strength that comes from being a producer instead of a burger flipper.
The west coast desperatly needs new refinery capacity and nuclear power capacity. Want to guess how long it would take to build such things out where you live?
Why have Kia, Nissan, Hunday, Toyota, BMW, and Mercedes located in the deep south? Ready supply of work-oriented labor, low taxes, few regulatory roadblocks, and state incentives…...and NO unions.
And to make things worse our Ruling Class slaps a moratorium on deepwater drilling that cuts 100,000 high paying jobs from our area. And now forces BP to pay claims from realtors because housing sales are down due to the oil spill (which really means the Washington moratorium).
No matter how stupid and naive a President is: you wouldn’t do this stuff unless it fit your ideological template.

#7 It makes perfect sense, as parts of the deep south are a lot like places in developing countries. It’s easy to get cheap labor, and the people are gratified.

The Japanese, however, have a much different way of treating employees. American companies historically had an antagonistic attitude toward them, necessitating unions. The Japanese (and the Germans) treat their employees better. The ratio of income of the top exec to the janitor in those countries is exponentially less than in American companies. In some, the Japanese found ways to make unions irrelevant.

#4 Actually, taxes did go down for most Americans. They just didn’t look at their paycheck. Health care costs will continue to rise (but by a smaller proportion), which is why they haven’t gotten many raises.

The administration would have done well to give payroll taxes a holiday. That was a good Republican idea. But they have also created programs for the SBA, as well as plenty of tax cuts for them. The word just hasn’t gotten out because it doesn’t fit with the standard narrative presented.

Many Economists argued that the stimulus should have been double, and that a small stimulus would not be noticeable. They seem to have been right. The economy was so bad, that all the stimulus did, was prevent things from being worse. As the government spent, states tightened their belts, so that nobody noticed….